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Talk:The Infamous Warning/@comment-46.9.230.236-20131126192313
The text seems to fit well with the questions/statements from the leaked emails in 2012 part 2, and also with the message referring to attaining "enlightenment". Some of the beliefs listed here are similar to ideas found in Buddhism and Avaita Vedanta, and the questions in the emails presuppose such ideas. "You cannot step into the same river twice" is true. The river is constantly in flux. It is never the same from one moment to the next. This is, in part, is what emptiness refers to. Emptiness of inherent existence or nonsubstantiality. There is no inherent and unchanging "rivereness" that makes the river what it is, if there was, it could not change, but the river is always changing. In fact, "river" is merely a mental label we apply to an ongoning process that has originated in co-dependence on innumerable causes and conditions. The same thing is true of meaning. It sounds bleak when this person says that things are meaningless, but meaning is not something inherent in objects we observe. Minds give objects meaning. Words and language have no inherent meaning either. "I am the voice in my head" - false. This is a question both a Buddhist and an Advaitin could ask, and it is related to the Buddhist idea of Anatta - no self or no soul, or the Advaita neti neti (I am neither this, nor that). The statement fits well with the statement "Find the death of the “I” or the ego", the second meaning of "Find a death every day". Speaking of "Find a death every day", meditating on one's own inevitable death is very important within Buddhism. The reason for it not that one should realize that "nothing matters", but rather that one should realize what actually DOES matter. If you have recently been in a quarrel with a loved one and are feeling angry, try to view it from the vantage point of your deathbed. Were those words REALLY as important as you made them out to be? Will you care about them when you are dying and are looking back at your life and your relationships? Or was it completely unimportant in the grand scheme of things? Also, being mindfull of the fact that you will die will save you from a lot of fear and grief when the "evil day" inevitably arrives. "I am always enogh" - sounds rather egotistical, and the writer interprets this as some idea of Übermensch. But if it is interpreted in light of the eastern thinking that seems to be at the heart of the beliefs he mentions, then it simply means that ideas of wrongness and rightness exist only in the mind who compares actual present reality to a figment of its imagination. Without such comparisons, everything is perfect, and you are lacking in nothing. And if you are lacking in nothing (because you do not compare youself to an unreal mind made idea: "if I were only smarter", "if I were only prettier"), then you are always enough. This does not mean that one should not act to change the word for the better. But it does mean that it is utterly meaningless to fight what *is*. Taking appropriate action to change what will *be* does not contradict this way of thinking. The statement of absolute morality is interesting. If by denying absolute morality it means that you cannot make an infallible law of dos and don'ts that will apply in any situation, then it fits well with eastern thought (although one can make general principles, such as the five precepts of Buddhism). But it does not mean that there is not a right view and a right course of action in any situation. Still, even that right action is contingent on the universal wish for happiness and the context of the situation, it is not something with absolute and inherent existence as a transcendent "oughtness". Finally, the five levels of humanity and no "real" reality. The five levels of humanity could correspond stage of ordinary human + the four stages of enlightenment of Theravada Buddhism. Since he specifies nothing more, it is hard to know what is meant by it. No soul distinct from the body fits well with Abhidhamma, which is important in Theravada (although all Buddhists believe in Anatta). But strangely, the no "real" reality - view, fits better with Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita than Theravada. I do not have the time to develop the theme here. Is this stuff for real? I don't know. It could have been made up on the basis of reading the questions, some knowledge of eastern thought and good old Christian "tolerance" towards other beliefs :) But I am not quite sure. I have known quite a few people who have been "saved" due to a powerful spiritual experience within a Christian context. Most of them do not talk of hell or being saved from it. Usually it is the here and now that has been changed for the better, and usually it is the relationship they believe they have with Jesus that they talk about. They are usually not very concerned about the afterlife either, since "eternal life" (qualitatively) is something that can be had here and now. Therefore this sentence sounds more like someone who is not a Christian trying to mimick one, rather than an actual born again Christian (unless he has joined a cult). And so, it could be that the whole persona is made up. Not a Christian, and not a former member of the cicada, whatever that may be, yet, based on the questions in the leaked emails he/or she could have seen enough of where they were coming from to get a few points right.